110+ Sri Aurobindo Quotes On Education, Freedom And Yoga

Sri Aurobindo was an Indian philosopher, yogi, guru, poet, and nationalist. He was an early advocate for Indian independence from British rule and was one of the most influential spiritual figures of the twentieth century. He is best known for his philosophical works on integral yoga and his vision of a spiritualized and transformed society. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Sri Aurobindo on education, freedom, yoga.

Top 10 Sri Aurobindo Quotes

1. Life is life - whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference there between a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man's own advantage.
2. The supreme state of human love is...the unity of one soul in two bodies.
3. If a religion is not universal, it cannot be eternal. A narrow religion, a sectarian religion, an exclusive religion can live only for a limited time and a limited purpose.
4. True knowledge is not attained by thinking. It is what you are; it is what you become.
5. Our human knowledge is a candle burnt On a dim altar to a sun-vast Truth.
6. Arise, transcend Thyself, Thou art man and the whole nature of man Is to become more than himself.
7. What men call knowledge, is the reasoned acceptance of false appearances. Wisdom looks behind the veil and sees.
8. By your stumbling, the world is perfected.
9. Turn all things to honey; this is the law of divine living.
10. There is nothing mind can do that cannot be better done in the mind's immobility and thought-free stillness. When mind is still, then truth gets her chance to be heard in the purity of the silence.

Sri Aurobindo Short Quotes

• [S]tand aside and watch the working of the divine power in yourself.
• Detachment is the beginning of mastery.
• The Atheist is God playing at hide and seek with Himself.
• One mighty deed can change the course of things; a lonely thought becomes omnipotent.
• Hidden nature is secret God.
• Rather hang thyself than belong to the horde of successful imitators.
• The mind of an ordinary man is truly near the heart.
• Transform reason into ordered intuition; let all thyself be light. This is thy goal.
• This world is a vast unbroken totality, a deep solidarity joins its contrary powers.
• What is God after all? An eternal child playing an eternal game in an eternal garden.

Sri Aurobindo Quotes About Freedom

Recover the source of all strength in yourself, and all else will be added to you ... political freedom, the mastery of human thought, the hegemony of the world. — Sri Aurobindo

To attempt social reform, educational reform, industrial expansion, the moral improvement of the race without aiming, first and foremost, at political freedom is the very height of ignorance and futility. — Sri Aurobindo

Witness and stand back from Nature, that is the first step to the soul's freedom. — Sri Aurobindo

Man's freedom is relative and it cannot be held solely responsible for the imperfection of his nature. — Sri Aurobindo

The fly that touches honey cannot use it's wings; so too the soul that clings to spiritual sweetness ruins it's freedom and hinders contemplation. — Sri Aurobindo

The supreme end is the freedom of the spirit. — Sri Aurobindo

The whole world yearns after freedom, yet each creature is in love with his chains; this is the first paradox and inextricable knot of our nature. — Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo Quotes About Yoga

The practice of Yoga brings us face to face with the extraordinary complexity of our own being. — Sri Aurobindo

Yoga is a generic name for any discipline by which one attempts to pass out of the limits of one's ordinary mental consciousness into a greater spiritual consciousness. — Sri Aurobindo

The Bhagavad-Gita is a true scripture of the human race a living creation rather than a book, with a new message for every age and a new meaning for every civilization. — Sri Aurobindo

The one aim of [my] yoga is an inner self-development by which each one who follows it can in time discover the One Self in all and evolve a higher consciousness than the mental, a spiritual and supramental consciousness which will transform and divinize human nature. — Sri Aurobindo

The principle of Yoga is the turning of one or of all powers of our human existence into a means of reaching divine Being. — Sri Aurobindo

The higher Truth is all the time working in us but through the lower power - Aparashakti. It is when we become conscious of the play of this higher Power then only yoga begins. — Sri Aurobindo

In order to satisfy the vital being, it must be offered some activity, and at the same time the mind should be slowly made to take interest in yoga. — Sri Aurobindo

The desire of your vital being is towards work. And the vital being won't find any interest in yoga so long as you do not have any experience of the higher and fuller life that is in yoga. As long as this experience is not there, the vital being will not find any interest. — Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo Quotes About Love

My God is love and sweetly suffers all. — Sri Aurobindo

One who loves God finds the object of his love everywhere. — Sri Aurobindo

If Hell were possible, it would be the shortest cut to the highest heaven. For verily God loveth. — Sri Aurobindo

Love is the keynote, Joy is the music, Knowledge is the performer, the Infinite All is the composer and audience. — Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo Quotes About Humanity

The human mind moves always forward, alters its viewpoint and enlarges its thought substance, and the effect of these changes is to render past systems of thinking obsolete or, when they are preserved, to extend, to modify and subtly or visibly to alter their value. — Sri Aurobindo

The most vital issue of the age is whether the future progress of humanity is to be governed by the modern economic and materialistic mind of the West or by a nobler pragmatism guided, uplifted and enlightened by spiritual culture and knowledge. — Sri Aurobindo

To hope for a true change of human life without a change of human nature is an irrational and unspiritual proposition. — Sri Aurobindo

The meeting of man and God must always mean a penetration and entry of the divine into the human and a self-immergence of man in the Divinity. — Sri Aurobindo

Samskrit language, as has been universally recognized by those competent to form a judgment, is one of the most magnificent, the most perfect, the most prominent and wonderfully sufficient literary instrument developed by the human mind. — Sri Aurobindo

Only the soul that is naked and unashamed, can be pure and innocent , even as Adam was in the primal garden of humanity . — Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo Quotes About Life

The first and the most important thing is to know that life is one and immortal. Only the forms, countless in number, are transient and brittle. The life everlasting is independent of any form but manifests itself in all forms. Life then does not die... but the forms are dissolved. — Sri Aurobindo

What is required is faith. Man has body, life and mind but that is not all that constitutes man. He has risen to the mind as a result of evolution. Now a higher consciousness will be evolved - this I call Supermind. It is the instrument of the Divine Consciousness, the Truth-Consciousness. — Sri Aurobindo

She saw the myriad gods, and beyond God his own ineffable eternity; she saw that there were ranges of life beyond our present life, ranges of mind beyond our present mind and above these she saw the splendors of the spirit. — Sri Aurobindo

The experiences of your past life which are stored within come up to the surface to be rejected. By rejecting all these by and by the inside will have to be cleansed. — Sri Aurobindo

All that is born and destroyed is reborn in the sweep of the ages; Life like a decimal ever recurring repeats the old figure. — Sri Aurobindo

Not in the state of unconsciousness, but in full awareness when the higher Power will descend into and direct us, then only the yogic life will begin. — Sri Aurobindo

Man in the world's life works out the dreams of God. — Sri Aurobindo

The supramental transformation, the supramental evolution must carry with it a lifting of mind, life and body out of themselves into a greater way of being in which yet their own ways and powers would be, not suppressed or abolished, but perfected and fulfilled by the self-exceeding. — Sri Aurobindo

To feed death with her works is here life's doom. — Sri Aurobindo

Death fosters life that life may suckle death. — Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo Quotes About Silence

Not only a truer knowledge, but a greater power comes to one in the quietude and silence of a mind that, instead of bubbling on the surface, can go to its own depths and listen. — Sri Aurobindo

Sit in meditation ! But do not think ! Look only at your mind ! You will see thoughts coming into it ! Before they can enter, throw these away from your mind till your mind is capable of entire silence. — Sri Aurobindo

When mind is still, then truth gets her chance to be heard in the purity of the silence. — Sri Aurobindo

While doing work if the mind continues to be active let it be so, but there must be at the same time a capacity for silence. — Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo Quotes About Spiritual

The spiritual path is one of falling on your face, getting up, brushing yourself off, turning and looking sheepishly at God and then taking the next step. — Sri Aurobindo

But difficulties were made to be overcome and if the Supreme Will is there, they will be overcome. — Sri Aurobindo

The only work that spiritually purifies us is that which is done without personal motives. — Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo Quotes About Idea

Be conscious first of thyself within, then think and act. All living thought is a world in preparation; all real act is a thought manifested. The material world exists because an idea began to play in divine self–consciousness. — Sri Aurobindo

Yes, it is difficult for man to cross beyond the idea of duty. — Sri Aurobindo

The Divine Truth is greater than any religion or creed or scripture or idea or philosophy. — Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo Famous Quotes And Sayings

Perfect health, sincerity, honesty, straightforwardness, courage, disinterestedness, unselfishness, patience, endurance, perseverance, peace, calm, self control are all things that are taught infinitely better by example than by beautiful speeches. — Sri Aurobindo

Everyone has in him something divine, something his own, a chance of perfection and strength in however small a sphere which God offers him to take or refuse. The task is to find it, develop it & use it. The chief aim of education should be to help the growing soul to draw out that in itself which is best and make it perfect for a noble use. — Sri Aurobindo

Physical education for the body to be effective must be rigorous and detailed, far sighted and methodological. This will be translated into habits. These habits should be controlled and disciplined, while remaining flexible enough to adapt themselves to circumstances and to the needs of growth and development of the being. — Sri Aurobindo

Safety lies in tending towards our highest and not in resting content with an inferior potentiality..... To rest in or follow after an inferior potentiality may seem safe, rational, comfortable, easy, but it ends badly, in some futility or in a mere circling down the abyss or in a stagnant morass. Our right and natural road is towards the summits. — Sri Aurobindo

A thought is an arrow shot at the truth; it can hit a point, but not cover the whole target. But the archer is too well satisfied with his success to ask anything farther. — Sri Aurobindo

Suffering makes us capable of the full force of the Master of Delight; it makes us capable also to bear the utter play of the Master of Power. Pain is the key that opens the gates of strength; it is the high-road that leads to the city of beatitude. — Sri Aurobindo

The consciousness of the seer, is a greater power for knowledge than the consciousness of the thinker. The perceptual power of the inner sight is greater and more direct than the perceptual power of thought. — Sri Aurobindo

Watch the too indignantly righteous. Before long you will find them committing or condoning the very offence which they have so fiercely censured. — Sri Aurobindo

Trust the divine power, and she will free the godlike elements in you and shape all into an expression of divine nature. — Sri Aurobindo

All thoughts, desires, conventions, attachments which come from outside must be ruthlessly pushed away. — Sri Aurobindo

The existence of poverty is the proof of an unjust and ill-organised society, and our public charities are but the first tardy awakening in the conscience of a robber. — Sri Aurobindo

The business of both parent and teacher is to enable and to help the child to educate himself, to develop his own intellectual, moral, aesthetic and practical capacities and to grow freely as an organic being, not to be kneaded and pressured into form like an inert plastic material — Sri Aurobindo

We cannot afford to raise any institution to the rank of a fetish. To do so would be simply to become the slaves of our own machinery. — Sri Aurobindo

The Atheist is God playing at hide and seek with Himself; but is the Theist any other? Well, perhaps; for he has seen the shadow of God and clutched at it. — Sri Aurobindo

If India is to survive, she must be made young again. Rushing and billowing streams of energy must be poured into her; her soul must become, as it was in the old times, like the surges, vast, puissant, calm or turbulent at will, an ocean of action or of force. — Sri Aurobindo

Delight is the secret. Learn of pure delight and thou shalt learn of God. What then was the commencement of the whole matter? Existence that multiplied itself for sheer delight of being and plunged into numberless trillions of forms so that it might find itself innumerably. — Sri Aurobindo

The subliminal mind receives and remembers all those touches that delight the soul. Our soul takes joy in this right touching by the Essence of all experience. — Sri Aurobindo

The all-embracing vast being which is there behind the play of the universe and with which you will have to identify yourself - for this is your true self. — Sri Aurobindo

When I approached God at that time, I hardly had a living faith in Him. The agnostic was in me, the atheist was in me, the sceptic was in me and I was not absolutely sure that there was a God at all. I did not feel His presence. Yet something drew me to the truth of the Vedas, the truth of the Gita, the truth of the Hindu religion. — Sri Aurobindo

That which we call the Hindu religion is really the Eternal religion because it embraces all others. — Sri Aurobindo

Remember that you are at an exceptional hour in a unique epoch, that you have this great happiness, this invaluable privilege, of being present at the birth of a new world. — Sri Aurobindo

Terrorism thrives on administrative violence and injustice; that is the only atmosphere in which it can thrive and grow. It sometimes follows the example of indiscriminate violence from above; it sometimes, though very rarely, sets it from below. But the power above which follows the example from below is on the way to committing suicide. — Sri Aurobindo

The mind is running on all sides to think about many things, - what we call thoughts coming from outside. We must withdraw the mind from these distractions and make it abide in the self. Thus guarding the peace within we shall have to do the work without. — Sri Aurobindo

There is therefore no reason to put a limit to evolutionary possibility by taking our present organization or status of existence as final. The animal is a laboratory in which Nature has worked out man; man may very well be a laboratory in which she wills to work out superman, to disclose the soul as a divine being, to evolve a divine nature. — Sri Aurobindo

We can arrive at a point of view where the preservation of the individual activities is no longer inconsistent with our comprehension of the cosmic consciousness or our attainment to the transcendent and supracosmic. — Sri Aurobindo

A great thing would be done if all these God-visions could embrace and cast themselves into each other; but intellectual dogma and cult egoism stand in the way. — Sri Aurobindo

Our lives are God's messengers beneath the stars. — Sri Aurobindo

All kinds of indications will come from above and whatever you do must be referred to the Above. — Sri Aurobindo

To have a developed intellect is always helpful if one can enlighten it from above and turn it to a divine use. — Sri Aurobindo

An active mind needs an outlet. If it stops by itself from within, well and good; otherwise one should not try to stop this by force. — Sri Aurobindo

You have however within you an inclination towards completeness. — Sri Aurobindo

What comes from outside, one mistakes it as coming from inside. So many thoughts etc. move about outside in the universal - these manifest inside you. All these you must push away as foreign to you and the inside must be made peaceful, calm and quiet; then it will start descending from above. — Sri Aurobindo

All religions have some truth in them, but none has the whole truth; all are created in time and finally decline and perish. Mahomed himself never pretended that the Koran was the last message of God and there would be no other. God and Truth outlast these religions and manifest themselves anew in whatever way or form the Divine Wisdom chooses. — Sri Aurobindo

Those who have advanced rise to the mind which is in the head, - they have the play of their mental movements in the head itself. But all these are inside the body; man is, as it were, shut up in a box, his entire consciousness is confined within the organism. This imprisonment has to be undone. — Sri Aurobindo

As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mind - to take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of nature in its narrow terms - runs riot here (in psychoanalysis). Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood. — Sri Aurobindo

The heart's words fall back unheard from Wisdom's throne. — Sri Aurobindo

The Hindu religion appears ... as a cathedral temple, half in ruins, noble in the mass, often fantastic in detail but always fantastic with a significance crumbling or badly outworn in places, but a cathedral temple in which service is still done to the Unseen and its real presence can be felt by those who enter with the right spirit. — Sri Aurobindo

What do you want to do sadhana for? The aim should not be the satisfaction of egoism: "I want to be a great yogi; I shall have so much power and with that power I shall establish myself in the world." All such thoughts must be thrown far away. — Sri Aurobindo

In the normal play of our mind there are all sorts of perversions; hence the need to stop all these things and inculcate right thinking, right willing - in other words, Truth must be established. — Sri Aurobindo

Is it true that existence consists only in the action of energy? Or is it not rather that energy is an output of Existence? — Sri Aurobindo

Do not belong to the past dawns,but to the noons of future — Sri Aurobindo

Metaphysical thinking will always no doubt be a strong element in her mentality, and it is to be hoped that she will never lose her great, her sovereign powers in that direction. — Sri Aurobindo

You have a strong active nature. And this in you is a point of strength. If you can mould it rightly this will become a very great strength. On the other hand, this too is your weak point - a hindrance in sadhana. — Sri Aurobindo

Vain indeed is all overweening pride in the conquest even of the entire universe if one has not conquered one's own passions. — Sri Aurobindo

You carry in yourself all the obstacles necessary to make your realization perfect. If you discover a very black hole, a thick shadow, be sure there is somewhere in you a great light. It is up to you to know how to use the one to realize the other. — Sri Aurobindo

The yogin becomes aware in part of the action of the supramental power organizing the lower vehicle (ādhāra). A part of it remains behind the veil and prepares itself. — Sri Aurobindo

All desires and egoism will have to be banished from the being. — Sri Aurobindo

The seers of ancient India had, in their experiments and efforts at spiritual training and the conquest of the body, perfected a discovery which in its importance to the future of human knowledge dwarfs the divinations of Newton and Galileo , even the discovery of the inductive and experimental method in Science was not more momentous. — Sri Aurobindo

Inspiration is a slender river of brightness leaping from a vast and eternal knowledge, it exceeds reason more perfectly than reason exceeds the knowledge of the senses. — Sri Aurobindo

There is the physical mind which is mechanical but the awareness which is the essential character (dharma) of the mind is also to some extent present there. — Sri Aurobindo

One must have first of all a solid foundation. — Sri Aurobindo

In order to explain why the ordinary Sadhus and Yogis take to tobacco and gānja [an intoxicant], I said that these cause stimulation of the physical brain. But these have reactions. And to stimulate the brain thus is not the proper process. — Sri Aurobindo

Material things are not to be despised-without them there can be no manifestation in the material world. — Sri Aurobindo

Not complete inaction, which is an error, a confusion, a self-delusion, an impossibility, but action full and free done without subjection to sense and passion, desireless and unattached works, are the first secret of perfection. — Sri Aurobindo

Your mind has some clearness and capacity for right thinking; it opens towards the heights, but for its own sake, - to receive light from above for its own activity. — Sri Aurobindo

Be conscious first of thyself within, then think and act. — Sri Aurobindo

Propaganda is necessary only for the sake of money! — Sri Aurobindo

When thou findest thyself scorning another, look then at thy own heart and laugh at thy folly. — Sri Aurobindo

The consciousness of the supreme Purusha remains above, but in the mind there may be a Purusha consciousness which they call the cosmic consciousness - it is wide, all-pervading, one. Outside this goes on the play of Prakriti. — Sri Aurobindo

In the middle of an ocean on board a ship, one can get a sense of vastness. — Sri Aurobindo

After having stopped the lower activities of the mind, it must be made receptive; and, instead of weaving all kinds of empty and idle thoughts, the mind should receive intuitions from above. — Sri Aurobindo

Nothing in the many processes of Nature, whether she deals with men or with things, comes by chance or accident or is really at the mercy of external causes. — Sri Aurobindo

To be free from all egoistic motive, careful of truth in speech and action, void of self-will and self-assertion, watchful in all things, is the condition for being a flawless servant. — Sri Aurobindo

Man is a transitional being, he is not final; for in him and high beyond him ascend the radiant degrees which climb to a divine supermanhood. The step from man towards superman is the next approaching achievement in the earth's evolution. There lies our destiny and the liberating key to our aspiring, but troubled and limited human existence — inevitable because it is at once the intention of the inner Spirit and the logic of Nature's process. — Sri Aurobindo

Do not be eager for things above. — Sri Aurobindo

Live within; be not shaken by outward happenings. — Sri Aurobindo

The anarchic is the true divine state of man in the end as in the beginning; but in between it would lead us straight to the devil and his kingdom. — Sri Aurobindo

Life Lessons by Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo's teachings emphasize the importance of spiritual growth and the power of the individual to create a better world. He believed that the ultimate goal of life is to become one with the divine and that this can be achieved through self-discipline, meditation, and yoga. He also advocated for the realization of a higher consciousness and the unity of all life.